Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description provided in this section is not prior art to the claims and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A cellular wireless network may include a number of base stations that radiate to define wireless coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which user equipment devices (UEs) such as cell phones, tablet computers, tracking devices, embedded wireless modules, and other wirelessly equipped communication devices, can operate. In turn, each base station may be coupled with network infrastructure that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or a packet-switched network such as the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a UE within coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other UEs.
Regardless of whether it is configured to support one cell, multiple cells, or multiple sectors, a base station is typically deployed to provide coverage over a geographical area on a scale of a few to several square miles and possibly for tens to hundreds to several thousands (or more) of subscribers at any one time. On this scale, coverage is referred to as “macro-network coverage” and the base station is referred to as a “macro-type base station.”
More recently, a type of base station aimed at coverage over a much smaller physical area and at concurrent support of fewer subscribers has been introduced. Referred to generically herein as a “micro-type base station,” this device can be used to fill in local coverage gaps in macro-network coverage, or to provide localized small-area coverage where no macro-network coverage exists. When deployed as an integral component of the network infrastructure, a micro-type base station is also referred to as a “picocell.”
Service providers have also begun offering even smaller micro-type base stations as consumer devices that are referred to as “femtocells” or “small cells.” Femtocells can similarly fill in gaps in macro-network coverage. Femtocells can typically be comparable in size to desktop phones or other portable user devices. In a usual case, femtocells can provide limited and exclusive coverage to individual subscribers within small-scale spaces. Instead of connecting as an integral component of the network infrastructure, a femtocell communicates with the service provider's network via one or another form of broadband connection associated with or available to the consumer-owner (or renter) of the femtocell, for example, from an internet service provider (ISP).
A micro-type base station can be a low-power, low-capacity version of a macro-type base station, typically plugging into a residential power outlet, perhaps with a transformer providing a DC power supply. The micro-type base station may have a wired or wireless connection with a network router, and would thus have connectivity to the Internet and/or one or more other packet-data networks via a user's broadband connection.
The small form factor of a micro-type base station makes it deployable in a portable fashion. As such, the micro-type base station may not be as reliably fixed to a particular geographic location as a macro-type base station, which is typically deployed as part of the network infrastructure. In order to determine the micro-type base station's geographic location, the micro-type base station can be equipped with a satellite-positioning-system (SPS) receiver (e.g., a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver) for use in receiving and decoding SPS signals. The micro-type base station can also use timing information embedded in SPS signals for synchronizing operations with other micro-type base stations and with the macro network.
A base station may rely on the location information for various operations. As an example of a location-dependent operation, the base station may use the location to receive authorization from the cellular wireless network to operate in that location. As another example location-dependent operation, the base station may acquire one or more operating parameters such as a traffic-bearing carrier frequency (i.e., a carrier) among others.
Similarly, a base station may rely on the timing information to perform some operations. By way of example, data communications between a UE and other entities of the cellular wireless network via the base station may be formatted as timed data frames. To reduce errors in such data transmissions, the data frames can be synchronized to a highly-accurate and stable reference time signal. Satellite signals received by the SPS receiver may provide such reference time signal. The timing information associated with the satellite signals may therefore facilitate synchronized communication between the base station and other entities in the cellular wireless network and beyond.